Blog Against Theocracy Part IV: Takeover Of The Texas GOP

by tristero

For those of you following this series, this is a bonus post. One of the biggest misconceptions of American theocracy is that, “intelligent design” creationism aside, the most crackpot forms of christianism, such as those of Joe Morecraft and R.J. Rushdoony, are too marginal ever to worry about. Not so, unless you think Texas Republican politics has had nothing to do with national poltiics for the past seventeen years:

In February 1990 I received an unsolicited video in the mail. The video came from a Dr. Stephen Hotze and was entitled “Restoring America: How You Can Impact Civil Government.” Filmed at a church in my neighborhood, I recognized the actors as the pastor and congregants of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church (the Jerry Falwell kind). The video was a guide on how to 1) take over a Republican Party precinct meeting, 2) elect “Christian” delegates to the GOP District meeting, and 3) put planks supporting the theocratic agenda of Christian Reconstructionism into the party platform…

I knew that a good friend of mine, a retired moderate Baptist preacher (Jack Selcraig, recently deceased), chaired the GOP precinct in my neighborhood. I called him and advised him about the organized attempt to takeover of his precinct. He survived the challenge that year (they ousted him the next election cycle), but nearly all of the other Republican Party precinct leaders in Harris County lost their chairs.

Hotze’s dominion over politics in Houston, Texas (the third largest city in the U.S.) began that year — just in time to prepare for service as host of the 1992 GOP National Convention. His reign lasted for around a decade — until he was arrested for D.W.I. and fell from the good graces of his Fundamentalist followers. The machine he created, however, still rules over the Harris County Republican party and his success inspired and emboldened theocrats to takeover GOP precincts all over the country.

Along with his video tape, Hotze sent a written agenda and instructions for how to conduct a precinct meeting. He also suggested resolutions for the party’s platform. Today, nearly all the planks that Hotze suggested can be found in the current platform of the Texas Republican Party

If you click on the first link, Bruce Prescott has made available the audio track from this video online.